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ZIP vs CD-RW

post #1 of 16
1/18/03 at 5:58pm
Thread Starter 
I received my 5660 from PC Torque last week and absolutely love it!!
I have a question that I thought someone on these forums might be able to help out with. I have always used ZIP drives/disks to transfer files from computer to computer (primarily AUTOCAD and Photoshop files). My question is does anyone have any experience using CD-RW disks for holding and regularly transferring files from computer to computer? I will be going back and forth between my desktop, laptop, and computers at school. I seem to remember reading onetime that CD-RW are not to convenient/reliable for ongoing file transferring. However, I am not crazy about the idea of buying a new portable ZIP drive for the new Sager, but I want to be sure that CD-RWs can be just as convenient and reliable.
Also what software might be the best so I can use a CD-RW like a ZIP/floppy (ie-dragging and dropping, etc)?
Thanks for any info provided. These forums are great. Although I have only recently registered, I have been lurking since the beginning.
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post #2 of 16
1/18/03 at 9:49pm
Well if you're going to be using CDRWs to frequently transfer data from one machine to the next, you may want to consider paying a little more to get branded (and apparently more reliable) media rather than a cheaper nameless brand.

Also, do consider getting one of those smaller discs - e.g. even those credit card sized ones if they are available. I don't think you'll need the full capacity of 650 MB available for a normal sized CDRW disc - so the smaller sized versions may help.

If you intend to use the CDRW as you would like a HDD, then the set ups on all machines concerned will need to have packet-writing ability I think. This may necessitate the installation of third party software on those computers.

===

Having said this, you may want to consider these other solutions:

- A thumbdrive. Depending on how much files you're transferring, a 64 MB or a 128 MB could work well.

- A USB data transfer cable.

For myself, if the files are small, I just email it from one machine to another.


Rob
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post #3 of 16
1/18/03 at 10:57pm
I also think a thumb drive would be your ideal solution (or a cig@r). Get something that's usb 2.0 and 1.1, and works natively in all the OS's you'll be using.

I've had pretty bad luck with zips going bad (drives and media), and it's a pain to cart around a portable.

I haven't had much luck with the CDRW's either. One thing for sure, you'll find more often than not whatever media you buy is not going to be read in one drive or another.
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post #4 of 16
1/18/03 at 11:25pm
I did the entire zip thing a couple of years back, it was slow & annoying, and then my one $10 zip disk went bad and I never bought another one.

I'd go for cdrws, winxp does the drag/drop (then hit copy) thing for cdrs, I think its the same thing for an RW.

You can also use Directcd or something, and after you are done you do this little thing to make it readable in non-rw drives.

Personally, I just throw my stuff up on the web and download it wherever I need it.
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post #5 of 16
1/18/03 at 11:34pm
I could be wrong about this; but does XP support packet writing natively? I've never been able to get it to work. When I'm working with CDRWs, I can add additional data onto the disc like normal - but this is like multi-sessioning; I've never been able to delete selected files off the disc. So, the disc keeps piling up with more data, until there's no space - at which juncture, I'll need to do a erase disc.

DirectCD works certainly, but this is third party software.


Rob
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post #6 of 16
1/19/03 at 5:39am
I hate the built in xp burner, so slow, i think its because it makes a disk image first, then writes it. I remember my old plextor drive came with some packet writing software that was pretty slick. Ill have to find it agian.but i think one of those usb drives would be your best bet, far faster and less work that erasing and burning disks and DEFINATELY better than zip... always hated those things lol. but anyway...

usb thing > cdrw > spanning large files across many floppy disks > zip
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post #7 of 16
1/19/03 at 3:37pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the input. I checked out those thumb drives and they can get pretty expensive for the 512 ones. I need the large storage space because Photoshop files can get pretty big.
Wzierbovsky what do you mean by USB data transfer cables? Do you have a link to what it is?
Also does anyone have any experience/comments with Type II PC-Card Hard Disk Drives like this one? http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...u=T24-1102%20P
They have a USB card adapter to plug into desktops.http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...u=L61-3188%20P
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post #8 of 16
1/19/03 at 8:09pm
A USB data transfer cable basically is an adapted cable that connects to the USB ports of both computers; you then run a client program and simiply drag and drop the files you want to move from one computer to the other. Sort of like the old laplink program.

The one I'm using is a BAFO USB1.1 one:

http://www.bafo.com/bafo/productslis...product_id=378

There should be plenty of nameless brand ones in accessory shops - they're going for anywhere between US$15 to US$30 over here.


Rob
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post #9 of 16
1/20/03 at 1:54pm

ethernet crossover cable

why the heck would you want to get a USB transfer cable or zip drive? just get a crossover cable, or make one from your standard ethernet cable, if you have the tools or can get access to them. crossover cables are about the same price as ethernet cables. in other words, dirt cheap. you may already have one? My DSL box uses a crossover cable to connect to my computer, so it came with a crossover cable. crossover cables can also be used for 1 vs. 1 head to head gaming (yah!!!). with a crossover cable, to network 2 computers, both computers need to specify an ip address, and all the numbers need to be the same except for the last one. both need ethernet ports too in case that isn't obvious. It's a laptop, so why bother downlosing to cd or whatever for transfer from comp to comp? just bring the computer and a crossover cable and you are golden. us cds and or zips for backups.
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post #10 of 16
1/20/03 at 2:27pm
david1zer,
I have the 2GB Toshiba card. It's great for transferring stuff between work and home. I also have a large collection of music on it. I only use it on laptops . I haven't used the adapter. The only drawback is that it looks so fragile that I have to be very careful using it. I am not sure how rugged it is (I don't want to find out either ).

HTH.

dgantony.
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post #11 of 16
1/20/03 at 4:20pm
I have a crossover cable and it works great... you just have to make sure you know how to properly network the two computers for file sharing, otherwise you're stuck with using a program like netmeeting which is REALLY slow. Crossover cables are cheap, too, cheaper and much faster than USB1 crossovers. Those keydrives are sweet, though, I'd like to get one. But, with the 8886, you essentially have one in the form of the mp3 player, lol. Best of luck to you!
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post #12 of 16
1/20/03 at 5:50pm
from reading his post i dont think that he will be able to use a crossover cable because he needs to transfer files from his laptop, desktop, and school computers... i dont think that a crossover cable would work from home to school... unless you lived close to the school and had a reely long crossover cable and some battery powered repeaters or reely long extension cords... it might work. haha. I got one of those little usb flash media drives and it works great.. though i believe that the largest little card is 256mb... and that card is expensive. I believe you can get 128 mb for 40 dollars. the transfer is very quick and so far i have enjoyed mine

the kreep
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post #13 of 16
1/20/03 at 6:15pm

oh yeah

it occurred to me that you might not always want to lug your computer somewhere just to transfer a small amount of data. after all, these sagers are heavy aren't they? I also forgot to mention that crossover cables are screaming fast. I copied my brother's entire library of mp3's from his computer to mine in a few minutes. I don't know how many MBs that was. Lets just say it was gobs of data. That would have taken hours to do disk by disk, not to mention wasting cds if they are not rewriteable. I should listen to some of that music one day huh? right now its just taking up space on my HD. hrmm.
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post #14 of 16
1/20/03 at 6:41pm
Well from reading the previous posts I might get flamed for this......but I've always been a zip disk user. Some people complained about their speed but I've always been impressed by them (especially compared to writing to CD-RW's or (God help us) floppy disks. I could easily write a full 100MB to a ZIP disk in under two minutes (obviously not phenomenal but that still almost 1 MB a second). And I've never had trouble losing data on them (just don't keep your magnet in the same pocket. Just my personal experience with them (and you never have to worry about which "writing session" you're on (and the myriad of other problems I've run into with multiple writings to CD-RW's
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post #15 of 16
1/20/03 at 7:17pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Tyranous
Well from reading the previous posts I might get flamed for this......but I've always been a zip disk user. Some people complained about their speed but I've always been impressed by them (especially compared to writing to CD-RW's or (God help us) floppy disks. I could easily write a full 100MB to a ZIP disk in under two minutes (obviously not phenomenal but that still almost 1 MB a second). And I've never had trouble losing data on them (just don't keep your magnet in the same pocket. Just my personal experience with them (and you never have to worry about which "writing session" you're on (and the myriad of other problems I've run into with multiple writings to CD-RW's
I think that ethernet crossover cables are 10MB/sec transfer rate. that is what I meant by screaming fast. I think I transfered more than 1 gig of music files in a few minutes. It takes longer to set up the networking and file sharing correctly than to transfer the data lol (especially if you have a crappy OS that makes you reboot every time you change network settings, like ME does). But I guess you need to tack on the network setup time as part of the whole transfer. you may need admin privileges to change network settings on a school or work computer though.
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post #16 of 16
1/21/03 at 12:05pm
Actually if both computers have 10/100 Base T cards in them then you can use the full 100 MB / sec transfer speed witht he crossover cable (actually more reliably that using a hub or router since there's less cables/places for data to get lost. Of course if one of the computers is slow then the 100 MB/sec transfer rate is right out (in one experiment the transfer speed dropped to almost zero because the faster computer was trying to send data too fast )
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